Rosaria Butterfield has become well-known in evangelical circles for her amazing conversion story and current theological engagement with the LBGTQ+ worldview. Her contributions to the body of scholarship on gender and sexuality issues have been timely and clear. Her most recent book furthers the conversation by identifying specific lies that even many Christians are buying into today.
If you are not familiar with Dr. Butterfield’s work, I would highly recommend that you begin with her first book, Secret Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert, as that book gives a lot of backstory for much of the content in Five Lies. In Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age, Butterfield is going to deal directly with some of the falsehoods that are becoming part of the cultural air that we breathe.
The first lie is that “homosexuality is normal.” In this section of the book, the author deals with much of the compromise that has entered the American church through the “Side A” and “Side B” discussions. She dismantles the false reasoning behind these movements and deals with some of the key voices within that movement.
The second lie is that “being a spiritual person is better than being a biblical Christian.” This section deals with the modern thought that Christianity can be purely self-identifying. In other words, the belief that no matter what someone may believe or how he may act, if someone self-identifies as a believer, that profession must be accepted as true. Butterfield argues that this is not biblically faithful. Scripture gives clear doctrinal teachings of what must be believed for one to be within the bounds of biblical Christianity, and if someone falls outside those bounds, they are not a believer, regardless of personal profession.
Lie number three is that “feminism is good for the world and the church.” I think this is the second-hardest lie in the book for evangelicals to work through because it addresses something that is baked fairly significantly into American culture, and the author may overstate her case at a few points. However, the overall argument that God created men and women to be different, and to function differently is highly biblical. I encourage you to read Butterfield’s arguments carefully, and engage with her on each point, rather than either accepting or rejecting her entire argument as a whole.
The fourth lie is that “transgenderism is normal.” This is a powerful section because Butterfield begins at a place that many do not take into account. She begins with the sin of envy. Transgenderism is rooted in a heart desire to have what someone else has, and the biblical argument makes a significant contribution to the entire evangelical argument.
The fifth lie deals with modesty, and this will be where most Christians reading the book will struggle. This is not to say that the chapter is not sound. It is. It’s not to say that it’s not biblical. I would argue that it is. But modesty is often viewed as right next to oppression and is seen as rooted in a puritanical era that has no relevance for today. Butterfield makes a strong case for biblical modesty and her argumentation is well worth considering.
Overall, Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age is an excellent book. Rosaria Butterfield has given the church a clear, well-written, and well-argued work that deals with some of the timeliest issues of our world today. I would highly recommend the book and see it as a key resource for pastors and believers who are dealing with the complex nature of the world in which we live.
I received a free copy of this book from Crossway in exchange for an honest review.